Speeches by Barron.

“Just over 18 months ago, Harshita Brella was murdered in Corby and her body was found in the boot of a car. We are aware that there is an ongoing police investigation, and none of us wants to do anything to prejudice that, but her family feel isolated; recently, they flew over from India to get an update. When they hea…”

“Q2. Max Hall is 14 years old. He should be worrying about school, football, friends and what he wants to be when he grows up. Instead, he is living with a high-grade brain tumour and there is no cure available to him. His parents, Jackie and Steven, want to know why children being diagnosed with brain tumours are still…”

“As the Member of Parliament for Corby and East Northamptonshire, I agree with everybody about the emergency services, the NHS, the community who came together, the guards, the staff and the passengers as well, who did not go through the panic that can sometimes happen in situations like this. The 16.40 London train fro…”

“There are obviously threats and dangers in relation to how people get a lot of their information, because if it is based on social media, you do not even know whether or not that is—”

“On NEET rates, is there a target for the reduction?”

“Any kind of—”

“I don’t mind, but it was over two years ago.”

“Over two years ago, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman identified “a systemic failure in how DWP responds to what research and feedback is telling it.” You committed to learn from mistakes and develop an action plan, so when do you expect to publish that?”

“Targets would obviously be one way of addressing the success of anything. The DWP has said that, I think, 500,000 opportunities for young people have been identified. Is that a start?”

“When will that be published—shortly?”

“Having gone through the process to develop the action plan, what changes do you think are needed in the way the Department operates?”

“I will use my time today to share the words of Jackie Hall, mum of 14-year-old Max Hall. She says: “Dear Members of Parliament, Max should be worrying about school, football, friends, and what he wants to be when he grows up. Instead, our family is living with the reality that he has a high-grade brain tumour and that …”

“Do you think there are any further improvements the Department could make?”

“Rick, I think you have already covered the first part of my question, in relation to council tax reductions. Moving on slightly from that, the Scottish Government have introduced regulations to ensure that when a disabled person migrates to universal credit, the transitional element will not be counted as unearned inco…”

“Thank you. Daphne, you shared concerns with us about poor quality and limited effectiveness of DWP safeguarding referrals. What is creating those challenges, and how could they be remedied?”

“Following the Sayce review into carer’s allowance, has the Department taken on board challenges relating to how it communicates expectations with claimants and the possible consequences of when it does so badly? That is probably for you, Daphne.”

“Professor, what progress, if any, have you seen around DWP involvement in safeguarding adults boards, since the memorandum of understanding was agreed between the Department and the National Network for Chairs of Safeguarding adults boards?”

“I commend the Minister for coming to the House today to outline the various measures that have been taken, but what this says to me is that the model is fundamentally broken. We need a new model, one that puts people before profits, because people should no longer accept that the public always pay the bills and the sha…”

“I want to start off by saying that I find it absolutely incredible when people turn around and say that our Government should not be intervening and running services, when they are happy to allow other countries’ Governments to run our services and utilities. To be honest, I get a bit tired of it, because it is essenti…”

“Nobody should go to work, never to return home. On Tuesday 13 January 2026, Kenny Campbell Smart went to work at Corby steelworks and never returned home. Now that I have said his name, it will be written down and recorded in Hansard, and his name will live on forever. Today we are joined in the Gallery by Kenny’s wife…”